The late night dragged at Amelia. The dozen or so painkillers she took left her with a heavy head the next morning and her limbs refused to do as told, she'd collected a number of bruises bumping into things and being an overall mess already. Tony sent her out, away from the lab, after she knocked a screwdriver from the workbench. For the fourth time.

Coffee seemed to be the only answer, and not some machine made or kettle boiled crap, Amelia needed the good stuff. She sent herself down to the café near the bridge, the one with a perfect view of Stark Tower, and grabbed a proper coffee from the long-haired barista.

"Rough night?" he smirked, no doubt noticing the dark circles under her eyes.

"You've no idea." She replied, grabbing a table outside before someone snagged it.

Maybe some fresh air would do her some good. Stuffed in the lab, in Tony's workspace, it didn't do her any favours, and she needed her brain to kick into gear if she was going to be any help today. They had a whole bunch of calculations to get done before the test drive, Amelia wanted to double check the mainframe structure in the basement before they even thought about switching it on. Tony thought she was paranoid, tried reassuring her everything would go swimmingly, but there was no harm in making sure. Tony's idea of everything going right usually involved abandoning the plan and improvising, shrugging it off if a few sparks flew. He still hadn't pinpointed the location of the transcontinental lines running at the bottom of the Atlantic yet, and Amelia certainly wouldn't do it for him. If she couldn't ride in the suit, she wouldn't plan for the suit. Not that she wanted to put on the suit, the thought gave her shivers, but Tony didn't need to know that.

Thoughts of last night still plagued her, clogging up her mind like cotton balls, and every time she so much as glanced at her fingers she felt a tingling in her mind as dark thoughts stirred. What had possibly drawn her to touch the Tesseract, nobody in their right mind would look at a glowing cube and think they needed to immediately touch it. Space movie 101, you don't touch the alien tech with your bare hands. Amelia had seen enough sci-fi to know that, but it was as if something called to her, resonating inside her and she'd be drawn to it like two magnets connecting.

Amelia ran her hands down her face, "This is all my fault." She groaned quietly, rubbing her eyes. Speaking the words aloud only made her feel worse.

She triggered the cubes erratic behaviour, opened the way for that megalomaniac to come through, collapsed the base. All of it simply because Amelia made the dumb decision to touch the forbidden space cube, even if Fury wanted her to believe otherwise, and now the twisted alien psycho was running around the world with their top scientist and a trained agent.

"Something on your mind?" the waitress smiled as she came over with Amelia's coffee, setting it down off her tray with a couple of sugars.

Amelia smiled back, tearing open the tiny sugar satchels and unloading them in the coffee. "How much time you got?" she mused, stirring it all together.

The waitress chuckled, tucking her tray under her arm and left Amelia with her troubles, mindlessly stirring the spoon around the creamy mug, casting a casual glance across the café until her eyes rested on the man sat on the adjacent table.

He had an odd, wistful, look about his handsome features, as if still trying to wake from some dream, and his floppy blond hair flickered in the gentle breeze, blue eyes staring straight ahead at Stark Tower. "You waiting to see the big guy?" Amelia queried, nodding towards the Tower with all its shining glass and bare steel, noting the sketchbook laid out in front of him, his hand clutching a pencil and hovering over the page.

"Ma'am?" he glanced up, blue eyes squinting at her and suddenly he sat straighter in his chair, lips parting slightly. There was something familiar about him and his old-fashioned clothes, something Amelia couldn't put her finger on, and it bothered her.

"People come here just for the chance to see him fly by." Amelia explained, waving her finger in the air, but the man just openly stared at her, barely even blinking. Amelia wasn't even sure he heard.

Did he recognize her? Sometimes people in large public spaces could pick her out, noting the black hair, the smile, and put two and two together. Anybody with a famous name was worth meeting, even if they were just related, and Amelia had the misfortune of being related to America's most annoying celebrity.

But this guy, he seemed more… bewildered, than anything. Amelia couldn't put a name to it, he just stared at her in complete disbelief, and she decided to put him out of his misery. "The name's Amelia." She introduced herself, swivelling in her seat to face him properly.

"Yeah." He breathed and Amelia quirked an eyebrow. "I mean, it's nice to meet you."

She pointed to the sketchbook. "Are you an artist, or something?"

"Or something." He muttered absently, sheepishly folding the book shut, tucking his pencil in the margin.

"From New York?" Amelia stood and swung her chair round to his table to sit opposite him.

"Brooklyn, although it's a lot different than I remember." He nodded as Amelia retrieved her coffee, "I'm Steve, by the way, Steve Rogers."

Amelia clenched her hands around the mug to keep from dropping it, struggling to keep recognition from pouring into her features, swallowing down the sudden shock as the pieces clicked in her mind.

Steve freaking Rogers, of course he was. The blond hair, the blue eyes and the broad shoulders, even the dusty leather jacket and white converses, how had she not twigged sooner? Amelia had seen all the newspaper clippings, the photos in her grandfather's things and even read the stories when she was a kid, before her father took them away. Hell, she even learned about him during high school history. A man who was supposed to be dead sitting right in front of her, sipping a latte.

"Been gone a while?" Amelia prompted, clearing her throat, trying to act as if she didn't know this man's entire life story.

"You could say that." He answered with a light chuckle, "What about you?"

"Manhattan, born and raised." Amelia nodded, "Although you'll find me all over the place."

"How's that?"

Amelia studied him for a moment, how easily his surprise faded into the background, curiosity written plain as day on his face. Should she tell him? He knew her grandfather after all, Tony never stopped complaining about Howard's obsession with Captain America once you got him started, she wasn't sure if it tainted her impression of the legend. Now she got the chance to learn for herself, to see if he truly lived up to the stories, would that change if he learned her last name? Amelia decided she didn't want to risk it.

"Dad lives in California, so I tend to divide my time when I'm not in Massachusetts studying." Amelia took a sip of coffee. "Plus, a month or two in DC for work."

Steve leaned forward across the table, "Studying, that makes you a student, right?"

"MIT." Amelia smiled, giving a small cheer. "Go Beavers."

"That's the tech one, right?" He chuckled.

"You got it." Amelia nodded, "I've just finished my doctoral research."

Steve smiled, impressed, "And you manage to squeeze work in the middle of all that?"

"It's less work, more like a hobby." She explained, "Once I get my PhD, I'll be starting…" Amelia stuck her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing to the Tower. "With Stark."

Steve paused, coffee halfway to his lips, blue eyes flickering to the tower behind her. "For Howard Stark's son?"

That confirmed it. He didn't know who Amelia was. She didn't know if she was relieved or disappointed. "You could say that." Amelia said, twisting her mug between her fingers, "You gotta start somewhere, right?"

"Right." Steve set down the cup, finally staring at something other than her.

"What about you." she leaned forward across the table, "I feel like I'm the one doing all the talking."

"I'm not sure you wanna know my story."

"Try me." Amelia raised an eyebrow, doing a very good job of acting as if she didn't already know it. "Are you a sketch artist?" Amelia nodded towards the pad and Steve tapped it with a finger. "Is that the plan?"

"Maybe it was." Steve shuffled in his chair, "But I joined the army first."

Amelia put on a joking smile, "I didn't peg you as a soldier."

His handsome features brightened at the joke, and he raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Really?"

Amelia crossed one leg over another as she leaned back in her chair, taking a long sip. "I just thought you were a health nut or something." She shrugged, "A gym junkie and the like."

Steve chuckled, "Well, I hate to disappoint."

"Oh, not at all." She found herself saying, "You're not disappointing me at all."

Surprisingly, he wasn't. A little sheepish at first, perhaps, but Amelia saw she was beginning to dig through, past the uncertainty, past the discomfort of being a man out of time, and through to the real Steve lying underneath. The one she really wanted to know.

Amelia finished off her coffee, levelling a questioning look at the man across from her. "Do you like old movies, Steve?"

"Depends." He replied, "How old are we talking?"

He did a good job of pretending he belonged to this century, Amelia had to give him that, he didn't give anything away. "There's a theatre I know downtown." Amelia explained, "They're showing Suspicion at the moment."

"The Cary Grant movie?" Steve perked, surprised Amelia gave him a movie he recognized. "Came out 1941?"

"One and the same." Amelia smiled; glad she could bring a bit of light to what must be a difficult time for him. "I've been desperately looking for someone to take me."

Amelia raised her eyebrows suggestively as Steve hesitated, tapping his sketchbook again until a confident smile covered his face. He took out a couple bucks, setting them on the table between the two empty cups and stood up, offering his hand to her. "Would you care to join me at the movies, Miss Amelia?"

Amelia feigned surprise, "Why, I thought you'd never ask, Mister Rogers." She set her hand in his, unhooking her bag from the back of the chair and slung it over her shoulder as Steve wrapped her arm in his in the most old-fashioned move Amelia had ever seen.

Well, he was way out of his time after all, and Amelia found she liked it, leaning into the gesture, the two of them walking along the street arm in arm. Perhaps this was the distraction Amelia needed, to take her mind off the Tesseract, off the strange dreams and the test drive. Tony could handle things without her.

Generally, she tried to steer the conversation away from the past, away from the war, the current state of the world. Anything too deep. As much as she wanted to know all about her grandfather, to ask if all the stories she heard were true, she knew it would only remind him of what he'd lost. No one needed that reminder, and he seemed to enjoy pretending he belonged here, in this time. In this modern city. Her obsession with old movies and books, her love of jazz music and the classics helped a lot.

Steve did the polite thing and asked about her research, something Amelia could go on for hours about and she almost did. By the looks of it, he was happy to let her, nodding along, understanding very little of what she spoke about. He just smiled and kept encouraging her, stopping only by the beginning of the movie. Once it started, Amelia stole a glance at him, studying his features in the black and white light from the film, an odd nostalgic look passing over his face.

How strange it must be for him, Amelia thought, paying more attention to him than the movie. To come back after so long, with everything and everyone he knew gone, how lonely must he feel? Amelia could barely even imagine what he'd left behind, what he'd given up. It left Amelia racking her brain for anything she knew about the 1940s, trying to recall all those history classes on Captain America and the Howling Commandos from high school. He lost his friend just before the crash, his childhood friend, did he even have a chance to grieve? A chance to say goodbye? Amelia was lucky enough to know only one loss in her life, her mother, and every day she grieved for what might've been. Yet Steve had lost everything, thrown into a world he didn't recognize on top of it all. Steve wasn't just grieving his friend, he was grieving an entire lifetime, an entire world left behind.

By the end of the movie, Amelia had to remind herself to look away, disregarding the horrible realizations to put on another smile for him. She made the mistake of checking her phone as they left, scrolling through all the messages left by her father and the half dozen missed calls.

"I met you before, you know." Steve admitted as they strolled through Central Park, his hands in the pockets of his pants.

"Hmm?" Amelia murmured, not really paying attention as she shot off a message to let him know she was alright.

"At the Stark Expo."

Amelia's head snapped up and she tucked her phone away in her pocket. "That was you I bumped into, wasn't it?"

"You wore an old military cap." He tapped his head.

Amelia nodded, "It belonged to my grandmother." She ran her hand through the low hanging cherry blossoms and watched some of the petals fall. "Or her husband, I guess."

"What division?"

Amelia blinked, an odd question to ask coming from anyone else. "He was a first lieutenant during the invasion of Iwo Jima."

She missed the look of relief that crossed his eyes as they neared Bow Bridge, unconsciously grabbing his hand as an excited smile lit up her sharp features.

"Come on." She laughed and the two jogged down the pebbled path towards the cast iron bridge. "I haven't done this since I was a kid." She told him, collecting some sticks from the disheveled grass and pressed one into Steve's hand, ushering him to the centre of the bridge.

"Really?" Steve chuckled as he turned the twig over in his hand and Amelia leaned over the side to stare at the water.

"Ready?" She challenged, thrusting her arm over the bridge, stick ready to drop and a matching grin broke out across his cheeks.

Steve copied her, holding his stick over the side and nodded firmly. "Ready."

On the count of three, they simultaneously dropped their sticks, heads stuck over the edge of the wall to watch them slowly drift underneath on the water's surface, racing to the other side to see whose came out first.

"Yes." Amelia cheered, pumping the air as her stick floated into view.

"Best two out of three." Steve dared and they shook on it, both skipping back to the trees and searching the undergrowth for suitable sticks.

They met back in the middle, smiling goofily, looking like two giddy teenagers to the people who passed by, and dropped one stick after the other, dashing to the opposite side once they were both in the water. Amelia leaned out as far as she could, lifting onto tiptoes to stretch her view, trying to gauge which one would come out first, barely noticing as she began to topple forwards. Steve caught her hips in steady hands as she released a little shriek, setting her straight on the bridge with a chuckle, his hands lingering.

Until the sticks poked out from under the bridge and Steve let her go. "Take that, Rogers." She cheered victoriously, punching his chest lightly.

"Come on, you got lucky." He teased.

"Or you're just not very good at Poohsticks."

Steve shook his head, but a long smile overtook him at her playfulness and their eyes caught. Amelia swallowed, momentarily forgetting why she spent the afternoon with him. Something about a distraction, to cheer him up. His deep smile somehow infected her and Amelia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the rest of the world suddenly forgotten as well. Then a trivial tune blasted from the back pocket of Amelia's jeans and her smile slipped, a soft frown creasing Steve's forehead.

Amelia let it go to voicemail, she already had a bunch to catch up on, what was one more, but the moment had already been broken. God dammit, Dad. "I didn't realize what the time was." Steve murmured and Amelia knew the distraction was over.

She expected a hurried goodbye, maybe a see you later or the stereotypical 'I'll call you' but Steve did none of those. He let a sliver of hope into his blue eyes and said the words any girl wanted to hear. "I'd love to see you again, if you want."

"Sure." Amelia answered and the sliver widened. She took a marker from her bag, biting off the lid as she took his hand and scribbled a number onto his palm. "That's my number." She explained, clicking the lid shut. "Call me anytime."

"You got it." Steve promised, unsure as he read the number written on his palm. "I'll definitely do that."

"You better." Amelia grinned, stepping away, tucking another lock of hair behind her ear as she twisted on her heel and left him on the bridge.

Impulsively, she glanced back over her shoulder as she passed back under the cherry blossoms to find Steve leaning against the wall, staring into his palm with a forlorn look.

Had she planned on bumping into America's greatest soldier?

No.

Had she foreseen the day would go this way?

Definitely not.

Had she intended on giving the great Captain America her number by the end of it?

Extra no, with cherries on top.

Amelia had been having enough trouble with a particular vigilante lawyer, the last thing she needed was to throw in with another troublemaker, and if her grandfather's handed down stories told her anything it was Steve Rogers had a knack for swimming against the current.

Did she regret it? Amelia glanced over her shoulder again, catching the bright smile lingering on Steve's features as he wrote the number in his sketchbook.

Not in the slightest.

The same trivial tune burst from her back pocket and Amelia fished out her phone, answering the call immediately with a bite to her voice. "What?"

"Where have you been?" Came Tony's stark reply, the line muffled by what sounded like rushing wind. "What happened to double checking?"

"Never mind me, how's it working?"

"Come see for yourself."

Amelia hung up after that, picking up the pace as she navigated the streets of New York, the sun setting above her and dusk falling just as she turned the corner onto Park Avenue and caught sight of their little experiment. Stark Tower stood strong against the darkening skyline, the entire building lit up like a floodlight in the middle of winter, a beacon of glass and steel in the middle of the city, the Stark name reflected in the surrounding skyscrapers as they switched on.

"Not bad." She whispered to herself, craning her neck as she approached to take it all in.

Amelia pushed through the entrance, waving at the guard on duty, as the last few office workers trickled from the lobby. Much of the Tower belonged to the company, housing administrative offices, some of the human resources and legal team, with a few engineering labs at the base of the narrow tower. The reactor sat in the basement below, along with whatever storage they required, and Amelia dug out her keycard, skipping down the stairwell to get a look at the majestic beast.

"Not bad at all." She grinned, leaning on the metal railing blocking anyone from getting closer to the mighty reactor, blue energy swirling around the glass cylinder.

She didn't need those double checks after all, one look at the readings told her the systems ran perfectly, producing power for the entire building, and she dashed back up the stairs to find a familiar face signing in at the reception desk.

"Coulson." Amelia greeted with a friendly smile, "Little late for a house call?"

"I'm here to see your dad." He told her, a black binder in his hand. "It's urgent."

"Is he ignoring you?"

"Predictably so."

Amelia curled her finger at him, and he followed her to the elevators, settling in beside her and Amelia pressed the button for the highest floor. "Is this about last night?" Amelia queried once the doors slid shut, allowing them some privacy.

"Fury thinks he can help us find the cube." Coulson told her, "That's all."

"So, you're not here to tell him what happened?"

"That's not his concern."

"Good, that's good." Amelia nodded, relief flooding her.

The elevator spat them out on the highest floor, all the offices here belonging to the upper management, board members and the like, and Amelia transferred them to the private elevator, pressing her thumb to the biometric reader to gain access.

"What's in the folder?" Amelia asked curiously as the doors pinged open.

Coulson glanced at the black folder under his clasped hands, "Reading material."

A chuckle slipped her lips, "Be sure to open with that."

"Yours too." Coulson added, "Director Fury wants you both on this."

Amelia cringed as the doors closed behind them. "Oh, that's really not gonna sell."

"You're an expert on energy renewal and power transference." Coulson pointed out, "We need your advice as much as we need Tony's."

"Still." Amelia countered, "Dad isn't hooked on the idea of me working with SHIELD."

"When you say hooked?"

"He has no idea."

Coulson nodded absently, "Sounds about right."

"Mister Stark is waiting for you in the penthouse." Jarvis called, "Shall I tell him you're bringing Agent Coulson?"

"That's okay, J." Amelia replied, "Let's surprise him."

"Very good."

Coulson raised an eyebrow at Amelia, "He's not gonna like that."

"No, but I will." Amelia winked as the elevator stopped.

The doors opened onto a great wide-open space with charcoal grey floors and a retro look to it, if you ignore the giant floor to ceiling windows encasing the entire far wall giving a stunning view of the New York skyline. To the right stood a small kitchenette with black cupboards and granite countertops, glass shelving stocked with all kinds of bottles, atop a raised platform above the workspace, leading to the circular landing platform Tony used when he went out in the suit. A dip in the floor opened to a carpeted space, glass coffee table and brown leather seats furnishing the spot. Pepper and Tony glanced over to the elevator as it pinged, the pithy remark dying on her father's lips as he saw who stood beside her.

"Look who I found in the lobby." Amelia smiled, venturing into the penthouse and dumping her bag on one of the dressers lining the entryway.

"Phil!" Pepper exclaimed cheerily, grasping her champagne flute, her bare feet silent on the tiles as she stepped over. "Come in."

"Phil?" Tony frowned, following her. "His first name is Agent."

"Come on in." Pepper prompted, "We're celebrating."

"I can't stay." Coulson admitted, stopping a pace from the elevator.

"Did it work?" Amelia queried, glancing at her phone as it vibrated, a small smile tilting her features as she read the text.

Any chance of a rematch? – Steve

"No thanks to you." Tony blurted, flicking her forehead to get her attention, "Coffee run doesn't take an entire afternoon, kid."

"I got distracted." Amelia told him, surprised at how accurate the excuse was.

Either way, Tony saw right through it. "Oh yeah? What's his name?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Amelia smirked mysteriously. No way in hell was she telling Tony the truth, he'd probably pull a muscle yelling at her.

Captain America didn't exactly make Tony's good books; he barely made any books.

"We need you to look this over as soon as possible." Coulson offered the black binder, circling the conversation back to him.

Tony turned his nose at the thing, "I don't like being handed things."

"That's fine, because I love to be handed things." Pepper smiled, "So, let's trade." She swapped the folder for her champagne glass, shoving it into Tony's hands and taking his. "Thank you."

Tony gave her a flat look before turning to Coulson, clutching the binder between both hands. "Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday."

"This isn't a consultation."

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper interjected, curious look about her features which she quickly dropped. "Which I know nothing about."

Tony's brows knotted together, folding open the binder and slotting the pieces together into a portable monitor as he made his way to the workbench, blowing out a dismissive breath. "The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought, and I didn't even qualify."

The what? Amelia narrowed her eyes at the binder.

"I didn't know that either." Pepper flashed another smile.

"Apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others."

"That I did know."

"The whole world knew that." Amelia commented idly, setting aside her phone as her curiosity drew her to the binder.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore." Coulson replied bluntly.

"Whatever." Tony dismissed, "Miss Potts, got a second?" Tony coiled his finger at Pepper and she skipped over to them as Tony accessed the files contained within. "You know, I thought we were having a moment."

"I was having twelve percent of a moment." Pepper answered without missing a beat and smirked at Tony's flat look before her expression dropped and she glanced over her shoulder at the waiting agent. "This seems serious, Phil's pretty shaken."

"How would you know if it's…" Tony trailed off, jumping on a different train of thought, "Why is he Phil?"

Amelia leaned forward, reaching a finger to scroll through the information and Tony swatted her away. "What is all this?" she asked.

"This is, uh…" Tony swiped up with both hands, projecting the information onto the Perspex screens attached to the counter, usually used to display blueprints, several videos spilling audio into the room and Amelia straightened, her lips parting.

Dozens of personnel files, reports, scattered about between the records. Some of them on Tony, his exploits as Iron Man, but Amelia skipped over those. Video played of Natasha and Barton fighting amidst a pile of crumbling rubble, their uniform dusty and blood trickled from Natasha's forehead. Another video, this one of poor quality, showed something huge crashing down a busy street and beside it was a detailed medical file on one Bruce Banner. The last one drew most of Amelia's attention. An old, grainy video of Captain America fighting during the war, bouncing his shield off his adversaries like a frisbee, an image of him frozen in the ice pinned alongside. Amelia thought it strange how at peace he looked encased in the ice, not an inch of the concern she'd seen lining his forehead earlier, or the shadows haunting his eyes. Just him. As if he were only asleep for a moment, ready to wake up any second.

"Getting distracted again?" Tony muttered and his voice startled Amelia.

She drew her eyes from Steve's personnel photo, finding Pepper had disappeared along with Coulson, the two champagne flutes forgotten on the coffee table, the bubbles still popping.

"What are the Avengers?" Amelia deflected, leaning against the counter.

"Fury's super-secret trump card, if you must know." Tony skimmed over the information in the binder, pulling up all the information on the Tesseract and Tony peered at it intently. "Looks like they were trying to extract some kind of energy source from it."

"Unlimited sustainable energy." Amelia corrected and turned away from it, picking at her nail and doing her best to act as if she knew nothing. "Is that even possible?"

"SHIELD certainly thought so."

Amelia sighed, pushing off the counter and skipped up the thin steps to the kitchenette to take two mugs from one of the upper cupboards and flicked on the coffee machine. "Looks like it's gonna be a long night."

Tony drew aside the projection to frown at her. "Who said you're sticking around?" Tony sniffed, "It's past your bedtime, kid."

"Not a chance." Amelia scoffed, slotting the jug into the machine when it pinged. "Coulson said they needed both of us on this and you're gonna need me and my doctoral thesis research to have half a chance of getting through it."

"Uh, I know my physics, thank you." Tony tutted, leaning against the counter with a hand on his hip.

Amelia raised an eyebrow, "When, exactly, was the last time you brushed up on your thermonuclear physics?"

Tony opened his mouth to spit a retort and changed his mind at the last second, curling his lip at her instead. "Fine, you can stay." He relented, "But you can't blame me for trying."

"I can." Amelia teased, "And I will."

Once Amelia set the coffee down, they began rifling through the SHIELD files on everything from the history of the Tesseract, all the research their scientists conducted on the cube – including Amelia's, although her name had been kept off the record – and even everything they had on their extra-terrestrial visitors. Amelia paid close attention to those.

"So, this Lucky guy just waltzed in there and did a runner with the cube?" Tony surmised, chucking a baseball in the air and catching it repeatedly.

"Loki." Amelia corrected, "And it was a bit more complicated than that." Amelia's back straightened. "Or… so it says."

Tony didn't seem to notice her slip, too occupied with his ball. "Right, right, and he had the fancy pogo stick."

"That sceptre turned Agent Barton into his personal whipping boy."

"Space stuff." Tony shrugged, bouncing the ball off the floor. "Lemme see him again?"

Amelia loaded the photo taken from the security feed last night, the grainy dishevelled picture of him just as he arrived, and Tony leaned forward. "Well, he certainly looks like the end of the world type."

Amelia tilted her head, frowning, and her thoughts ran over her own impression of him. Without the fear of being space voodooed, she saw past the menace, the trickery. "Kinda charming, don't you think?" she murmured, "In a serial killer kinda way."

Tony gave her a puzzled look, "I'm beginning to seriously question your taste in men."

"Funny," Amelia smirked, "I said the exact thing to Pepper just the other day."

Tony gave her a fake laugh, clicking his fingers, "Can we focus here, please?"

"I am focused." Amelia whined, propping her head on her hands.

"Not on the hot aliens." Tony grabbed her shoulders, pulling her away from the Asgardian information and setting her down in front of the Tesseract file. "But this." He pointed at a section in the file, something about focusing the energy for specific capabilities, and Amelia recognized it as her own work. "Does this look a little fishy to you?"

"How so?" Amelia asked carefully, eyes darting between her father and the file.

"It's spotty and all over the place, kinda chaotic really." Tony judged and Amelia gave him an unimpressed look.

"Well, some might say it's an organized mess." Amelia pouted, failing to keep the bitter note from her voice.

"That is completely counterproductive." Tony snorted, "Mess is mess, and this is some of the messiest research I've ever seen." Amelia crossed her arms over her chest, blowing out an irritable breath, as Tony nudged her. "Reminds me of your doctoral proposal."

Amelia's eyes widened a fraction, and she dropped her arms, giving him a nervous chuckle. "What's so fishy about a bit of chaos?" Amelia queried, trying to divert the conversation away from her, unnerved by how unknowingly accurate the observation was.

"Don't get me wrong, despite the mess, it's brilliant work, the theorems on energy transference and accumulation are novel." Tony would never have said that if he knew the truth and Amelia kept her pride hidden. "It's very similar to what we're doing with the arc reactor."

"What's your point?"

"We just constructed one of the world's only self-sustaining buildings, and this is just a prototype." Tony shrugged and gestured to the two of them. "So why didn't he consult us?"

He did, Amelia answered silently, you just complimented my consultation. "And why research energy transference if you're not gonna do anything with it?" Tony added and it caused a tiny frown to bend Amelia's brow.

"No, the purpose is energy usage." Amelia reminded him, "You know, a sustainable way to power the planet?"

"That's another thing." Tony snapped his fingers. "Why would an intelligence agency be interested in powering the planet?"

"Huh." Amelia blinked, "You think there's something Fury isn't telling us?"

"He's a spy." Tony scoffed, "The man compartmentalizes like a human filing cabinet, of course there's something he hasn't told us."

Amelia thought back to Kaxton's benefit, the secret mission, the file Coulson wouldn't let her look at. Designs that served no purpose aiding energy accumulation and suddenly all this research, all her research took a darker turn.

Tony drummed his hands against Amelia's shoulders. "Time for a crash course in thermonuclear physics, my dearest." He announced, "The first step to figuring out Fury's machinations is knowing your shit."

Amelia glanced up at the clock. "But it's almost midnight."

"So?"

"So?" Amelia exclaimed, pulling her phone from her pocket and heading towards the collection of pamphlets next to the fridge. "We're gonna need takeout, and we're gonna need it now."

Ordering food seemed to appease Tony's own doubts but Amelia couldn't shake the feeling she'd missed something glaringly obvious. She had a direct line into this project, worked on it since the beginning, and yet she'd had such enormous tunnel vision all along. Why would SHIELD be interested in powering the world? Why did they send one of their best agents to acquire a simple file containing blueprints? And why research energy transference, why use Amelia's skills, if they had no purpose for it? Unless Fury did have a purpose and he neglected to tell anyone, that's what had Amelia worried. She didn't want her work used against anyone, even if it was in the name of peace.

What she expected from a Tony Stark crash course, Amelia had no idea, but she knew a whiteboard, crappy drawings and some loose terminology was not it. Amelia felt like she was back in high school, she even got an erasable marker right to the head for zoning out and checking her phone under the table. Safe to say Tony would regret it when he found thick round glasses and several beauty marks in the mirror. In multiple shapes.

"This Doctor Banner." Amelia stuck her chopsticks into the cardboard container. "He wanted to recreate Project Rebirth?"

"And it exploded in his face." Tony answered through a mouthful, unknowingly smudging the little heart drawn in black on his cheek with a scratch. "Literally."

Amelia flicked through the record, the shaky footage of the Hulk rampaging through Harlem looked as if taken on a crappy video phone, the sound of his roars echoing. "Wait." She tugged the screen closer, "Is this the guy who did his doctoral research on the relevance of gamma radiation in biochemistry?"

"I'm surprised you know that."

"Whenever I got stressed at Columbia I'd go down to the library and pick out a thesis to read, the librarian made me a little pile of ones she thought I'd find interesting."

"How often did you go there?"

Amelia shuffled, pushing the few noodles left in the white container around with a chopstick. "Often enough."

Tony chucked something at her, the shiny plastic wrapper bouncing off her head and she gave him a flat look. "Nerd." He smirked.

Amelia tugged open the cheap foil, picking out the fortune cookie and cracked it open, brushing the crumbs off the counter as she pulled out the long slip of paper tucked inside.

"Accept something you cannot change, and you will feel better." She read, crunching the cookie between her teeth.

"Huh, would you look at that." Tony broke open his own, "Listen to your parents, they know best."

"It does not say that."

"Are you calling the cookie a liar?"

"I'm calling you a liar." Amelia attempted to swipe the fortune from his hands, but he held it up higher, out of reach. "Come on, what's it really say?"

Tony laid a hand over his heart exaggeratedly, feigning offence. "How could you, I've always been honest."

"There's a difference between being honest and oversharing the hell out of your personal life."

"I don't overshare, I include."

Amelia gave him a flat look, "I do not need to be included in your extracurricular activities."

"What, you don't like hearing about my relationship with Pepper all of a sudden?"

"Not when it involves the words naked and protection." Amelia snapped, snatching the fortune from Tony's hands as a sly grin trickled onto his bearded cheeks. "You and I need to have a serious conversation about boundaries."

Fortune Not Found: Abort, Retry, Ignore? Amelia let a snicker escape her lips, huge grin spreading across her sharp features. "Oh, they saw you coming a mile away."

"Whatever." He took back the fortune, tossing them both on the side, and swiped the empty carton from her hands. "Let's get back to it, shall we?"

Amelia sighed, glancing at the whiteboard. "I think we've done enough catch up." Amelia admitted, "Whatever Fury is up to, we aren't gonna find it in the science."

"Then what do you suggest?" Tony queried, balling up a napkin and chucking it into the trash, punching the air as he got it in first try.

Amelia's eyes wandered to the packet Coulson dropped off and Banner's personnel file. "Fury's trump card, you said?" she prompted, tugging it over.

"The Avenger Initiative." Tony brought up the information, "He wanted his own personal team of line-backers."

"Fury must think the cube is valuable enough to elicit a response team like this." Amelia lined the profiles side by side, including Tony's.

Her father hesitated in front of Steve's picture, a slow frown creasing his lined forehead. "What do you know about him?" Amelia queried softly, slipping off the stool.

"He was Dad's favourite toy." Tony bristled, "Spent more time gushing about golden boy than his own son, what more is there?"

Tony dumped himself on the couch, picking up a booklet on ion fusion, pretending to absorb himself in it. "You're not the least bit curious?" Amelia prompted, following him onto the cushions. "You don't wanna know what all the fuss is about?"

"What fuss?" Tony muttered, "He's just a guy, there's nothing special about him."

Amelia opened her mouth to disagree. From what she'd read of Project Rebirth, Erskine wouldn't just make anyone the centre of his experiment, he held out until he found Steve. Meeting him in person did nothing to change her opinion, if just making him seem more human. Less like a man put on a pedestal, praised for his heroism, his sacrifice, and more like a man just trying to get through the day.

Whatever argument she was about to make died on her tongue as her phone dinged from the counter. Only Natasha would be texting her at this time of the night and she retrieved her phone to read the message.

Fancy a trip to India?

Amelia texted back. Hard pass on that one. Aren't you supposed to be on a mission?

I came, I saw, I chained a guy up and chucked him down a hole. We move on.

Amelia glanced over her shoulder at her father, finding his spot on the couch empty. You heard about Barton? Amelia asked.

The text's paused for a moment. Better clear your schedule, could use your help on this.

Take me to dinner first, why don't you.

West 30th Street Heliport, 0800, you arrive on time and maybe you'll get lucky.

The corner of her lip perked as she tucked the phone into her pocket, wincing when she heard her father yell from the bathroom. "Amelia freaking Stark!"

"And that's my cue to leave." She whispered, gathering her belongings and quietly slipping from the penthouse.